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Roman Portraits in the Getty Museum ROMAN PORTRAITS IN THE GETTY MUSEUM By Jin Frel in collaboration with Sandra Knudsen Morgan 36. Julia, daughter of the A catalogue prepared for the special loan exhibition "Caesars and Citizens' emperor Titus Philbrook Art Center, Tulsa, Oklahoma, April26-July 12, 1981 The perfectly preserved head is ArcherM. Huntington Art Gallery, The University of Texas at Austin perhaps the most charming female portrait in the collection. About 90. Photography by Donald Hull and Penny Potter Design by John Anselmo Design Associates, Santa Monica Art Direction, TomLombardi Typography by Freedmen 's Organization, Los Angeles Printing by Jeffries Banknote Company © Philbrook An Center and TheJ. Paul Getty Museum Library of Congress Catalog No. 81-50775 ISBN0-86659-004-8 This exhibition was made possible by grants from Getty Oil Company, Getty Refining and Marketing Company, The Oklahoma Humanities Committee and the National Endowment for the Humanities. TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface: Mr. Getty's Romans v Introduction: Roman Portraits 1 CATALOGUE The Greek Tradition nos. 1-4 13 Julius Caesar nos. 5-7 17 The Tradition of the Republic nos. 8-13 21 Augustus and his Family nos. 14-24 28 Later Julio-Claudians nos. 25-30 40 Flavian Realism nos. 31-35 47 Seven Female Heads nos. 36-42 52 Hadrianic Classicism nos. 43-48 59 Sarcophagi nos. 49-50 63 Antonine Portraits nos. 51-64 67 Provincials nos. 65-69 83 Late Antonine Portraits nos. 70-73 89 Severan Portraits nos. 74-83 90 The Soldier Emperors nos. 84-93 101 Dubia nos. 94-95 115 Spuria nos. 96-100 117 Supplementary Information on catalogue entries 120 Abbreviations 134 Index by accession numbers 136 iii This page intentionally left blank MR. GETTY'S ROMANS One day before World War II, J. Paul Getty was walking through the Vatican Museum in Rome and paused in a little-frequented gallery. He told the story later of how he was surprised to see a Roman portrait that looked uncannily like W. G. Skelly, founder and president of Skelly Oil, his friend and rival in the oil business. It is no wonder that in his collecting of ancient art, which Mr. Getty began at this time, Roman portraits were among his first acquisitions, and throughout his buying years an expressively individual Roman character could often seduce him into a purchase. Mr. Getty was not the only one to feel this way. In her introduction to the collection of Roman portraits in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gisela M. A. Richter noted that many venerable Roman Republicans looked to her like successful American businessmen. This spiritual observation does not hold up under deeper anal- ysis, but it may explain well one of the fascinations which Roman portraits have for modern Americans. Another reason for their popularity is that they provide human likenesses for the familiar great names of history, from Caesar to Costantine. And due to the response of the museum's founder, Mr. Getty's Romans now number nearly one hundred examples, showing a large spectrum of personalities, art, times, and evolu- tion, a mirror of the past in which we can often see ourselves. The present publication introduces all of the one hundred portraits in the Getty collection today, with an emphasis on the seventy-odd pieces which are actually visiting the Philbrook Art Center in Tulsa in 1981. Tulsa is a city Mr. Getty always remembered with a soft spot in his heart, for it was there that he took his first steps in the oil business. The thanks of the authors are due to the trustees of the J. Paul Getty Museum who authorized this enter- prise and to all friends who in many different ways helped with the realization of the show and of the cata- logue. The text was read by Faya Causey Frel, and much valued assistance was rendered by Katherine Kiefer and Lucinda Costin. J-F. V Figure 1. Bronze statue, called a ruler, but representing a victorious Roman general in the Hellenistic tradition. Beginning of the first century B. C. Rome, Museo Na- zionale. vi ROMAN PORTRAITS The ancient Greeks were the real pioneers of individuality as we perceive it today and of the artistic vision of the individual, realized in the art of the portrait. However, the Greeks tolerated public monuments, even for their ranking citizens, rather reluctantly and only after their death—at times the direct result of community action, the most illustrious case being the Athenian democracy that first forced Socrates to drink hemlock and later erected a statue of him in repentance. In the fifth and fourth centuries B.C., the great age of the Greek city states, portrait sculptors greatly en- hanced the actual appearance of famous people by avoiding the trivial, the momentary, signs of aging, emo- tion, or psychology. Such marks were restricted to socially less acceptable figures, both mythological and real—satyrs, centaurs, ghosts, barbarians, slaves—sometimes reflecting the darker side of the Greek soul. The image of a Greek citizen, in public monuments dedicated by the community or by descendants, was heroized and ennobled by comparison with the immortal gods. It was Alexander the Great (356-323 B.C.) who first adopted the Near Eastern tradition of erecting godlike images of himself, often colossal in scale, in order to foster propagandistic legends of divine legitimacy. His successors and later the Roman imitators (fig.l) followed this example. Also from Alexander's time on, the declining Greek cities permitted a multipli- cation and accompanying devaluation of public honorific images, together with an increase of monuments to the illustrious men of the past. But even though the interest in individual appearance thus increased in the Hellenistic era, the monumental and idealized character of Greek portraits remained basically the same. Greek sculpture may seem cold, distant, and in a way threatening to the modern viewer. At its best, it calls forth the identification of the viewer and the viewed: the victorious athlete the Getty Bronze can, in a good moment, communicate the feelings that it was you, too, who won at Olympia. Roman portraits seem just the opposite, partly because they look so much like real people we see every day. This man (no. 9) reminds me of the secretary of the museum, and that lady (no. 13) is the aunt who was not an intellectual but who made wonderful Christmas cookies. They are framed in their time by fashions of hair and beards, but with today's variety of hair styles and beard lengths, even this is. not an insurmountable obstacle for awakening a spon- taneous feeling of intimacy with them. It is, nevertheless, a wrong sensation. Although to some extent Roman portraits are personal and in- dividual, to a much larger degree they perpetuate the social and fashion stereotypes of their times. We remember how individual our friends were in high school, but a glance at another's school yearbook will im- 1 Figure 2. ZiW o/<sw Etruscan mediately reveal how everyone looks the same. It is an effect of the same time and the same photographer. cinerary urn with reclining man. What we actually see in Roman portraits is, of course, not the likeness of a real individual of flesh and blood Limestone, style of Volterra. Sec- but a social stereotype transmitted by the sculptor. The traditions of workmanship and the style and fashions ond century B. C. The head is of a generation provide the appearance which attracts us as actual likeness. However, this does not mean that much more a generic image than our fascination is wrong. It helps us to establish human contact by the vehicle of art. Right or wrong, it nour- a portrait. Getty Museum, ishes the feeling that humanity remains one in the changing kaleidoscope of history. 71.AA.262. THE ROMAN REPUBLIC Figure 3- Head of an old fisher- The private portrait as we understand it was first developed by the Romans. Literary sources relate how man. Roman replica after a when a prominent Roman died, he was escorted by a funeral procession to the Rostra in the Forum, where a Hellenistic prototype. The strongly son or other relative delivered a public eulogy recounting his virtues. characterized features show how After this, having buried him and performed the customary rites, they place a portrait of the deceased in the Hellenistic genre statues were a the most prominent part of the house, enclosing it in a small wooden aedicular shrine. The portrait is a starting point for Roman por- mask which is wrought with the utmost attention being paid to preserving a likeness in regard to both its traits. In the Renaissance, the shape and contour. Displaying these portraits at public sacrifices, they honor them in a spirit of emula- piece was often used as a represen- tion, and when a prominent member of the family dies, they carry them in the funeral procession, put- tation of the dying Seneca. ting them on men who seem most like the deceased in size and build. One could not easily find a sight Vatican Museum. finer than this for a young man who was in love with fame and goodness. For is there anyone who would not be edified by seeing these portraits of men who were renowned for their excellence and by having them all present as if they were living and breathing? Amazingly, this is the account of a Greek, Polybios (VI, 53) the great historian of the second century B.C. who came to Rome as a hostage and became a sincere admirer of Rome and Roman customs. The educational side of this practice was extended in the Empire to all great men of the past, Greek or Roman, and statues of them, with tablets recording their deeds were set up on the sides of the Forum of Augustus (31 B.C.-A.D.
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